Who wrote the Universal Declaration of Human Rights ?

Many of the assumptions about who wrote the Universal Declaration of Human Rights are wrong. The less known story of the men and women who wrote this foundational, emancipatory and anti-colonial document must be told in today's world.

On the anniversary
of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, we might consider whether the
idea of human rights with their firm assertions, their belief in the ‘rule of
law,’ and their globalised vision remain relevant in the world. The idea that
there are absolute standards has come under attack from both the left and the
right. The philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre, author of
'After Virtue', said, Natural rights and
self evident truths proclaimed in the American declaration of independence are
tantamount to belief in witches and unicorns. While from the left, in ‘Human Rights and Empire’, Costas Douzinas has called
human rights the political philosophy of cosmopolitanism and argued that human
rights now codify and ‘constitutionalise' the normative sources of Empire.

Those fighting the
attempts by the Bush administration to tear up human rights prohibitions on
torture would be surprised to see themselves as empire builders. The only
weapons they had were the Constitutions of their countries and the human rights
system, with its unequivocal rejection of torture. While recent developments in
human rights may certainly be used to justify foreign military interventions on
humanitarian grounds, a vast body of human rights law also limits the abusive
power of the state and protects the freedom of the individual. But are these
freedoms ones that are derived from ‘the West’ and therefore limited in their
application? States affiliated to the
Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) certainly seem to think so. In the
1980s and 90s Islamic states drafted the Cairo Declaration of
Human Rights in Islam, as an alternative declaration.

The idea that
different peoples were endowed with separate rights would have seemed absurd in
the middle of the twentieth century to those struggling against colonial oppression,
or trying to build new nations. The barbarity unleashed on the world by a
global war was certainly in the minds of delegates. But so too was the
yearning to build a better world within
the nation-state, as well as limiting foreign aggression and war. ‘It was imperative that the peoples of the
world should recognize the existence of a code of civilized behavior which
would apply not only in international relations but also in domestic affairs',
said Begum Shaista Ikramullah, a member of the Constituent Assembly of
Pakistan and a delegate of the UN in 1948.

Susan Waltz, is one
of the scholars who has done much to recover stories such as the role of Begum
Ikramullah and others in the forgotten
history of the drafting of the UDHR. Her work shows how mistaken
many assumptions are about this foundational document. Eleanor Roosevelt is often seen as the single author of the
Declaration, since she chaired the drafting Committee. Civil and political
rights are seen as classical ‘Western' concerns, whilst social and economic
rights are thought to have been advocated for by the Soviet bloc.

In fact, as Waltz shows, Roosevelt supplied neither the text nor the
substantive ideas that shaped the UDHR. Ricardo Alfaro, former
President of Panama, proposed the idea and first draft of such a Declaration,
which was taken up by many others including public intellectuals such as HG
Wells. While early drafts were worked
on by Rene Cassin of France, along with many US lawyers, each clause was voted
on by member states, and many suggestions came from drafters from small and
newly de-colonised states. The Latin American states promoted social and economic rights, while the Soviet
Union concentrated on racial discrimination - a convenient way of bashing the
US, as well as colonial states.

The desire for emancipation of all, emphasising
that rights applied to everyone everywhere, emerged as a major concern.
Significant additions were made by newly de-colonised states regarding
slavery, discrimination, the rights of women, and the right to national self
determination.

Two of the most
important drafters were Hansa Mehta of India, and Charles Malik of Lebanon, who
was Committee Rapporteur. Hansa Mehta, an extraordinary activist and brave
member of the Constituent Assembly in India, was responsible for the wording of the Article I ‘All human beings are equal in dignity and rights,’ arguing that if
the word men was used, it would not be regarded as inclusive but rather taken
to exclude women. She was the key figure who ensured gender equality in the
document.

Yugoslavia proposed
that human rights should apply to the peoples of non-self governing and trust
territories. Carlos Romulo of the Philippines argued that full rights should be
given to the colonies. Article 2, thereby ensures non-discrimination ( a
standard clause that came to be adopted in all treaties) on the grounds of race, class property, social origin and
so on; but it also ensures that subject peoples were also endowed with rights,
‘no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political,
jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a
person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under
any other limitation of sovereignty.’

Political
differences were very evident. But the arguments were not necessarily divisions
between blocs. There were political divisions among Muslims on religion and marriage, two very contentious areas.
Saudi Arabia objected to Article 16 on the right to choice in marriage. Begum
Ikramullah opposed the Saudi view, making a speech against child marriage. She
accepted equal rights in marriage on the grounds that equal did not necessarily
mean the same. Egypt’s Wahid Rafaat accepted the language on marriage, noting that marriage limitations based on
race ( as in the US) were more shocking to his country than limitations based
on religion or nationality. The clause on marriage, in short, was
fought for by a range of opinion to form an egalitarian and adult basis for
marriage which was absent then from most countries, whether eastern or western.

The clause on being
able to exercise freedom of religion was supported by a number of Muslim
delegates. The Foreign Minister of Pakistan, Zafrallah Khan, quoted the Qur'an ‘Let him who chooses
believe, believe and him who chooses to disbelieve, disbelieve.’ He
believed that the right to change religion was consistent with Islam. Moahammed
Habib from India, supported the statement as consistent with the Constitution of
India. However, Saudi Arabia objected to it, and eventually abstained from
voting on the Declaration itself. No one voted against the Declaration,
although Saudi Arabia, South Africa and the Soviet bloc abstained, with fifty
countries voting for it.

Hernán
Santa Cruz of Chile, member of the drafting sub-Committee, wrote: “I
perceived clearly that I was participating in a truly significant historic
event in which a consensus had been reached as to the supreme value of the
human person, a value that did not originate in the decision of a worldly
power, but rather in the fact of existing—which gave rise to the inalienable
right to live free from want and oppression and to fully develop one’s
personality. In the Great Hall…there was an atmosphere of genuine
solidarity and brotherhood among men and women from all latitudes, the like of
which I have not seen again in any international setting.”

(This article was first published in 2012. It is republished here on the anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 10th December 1948).

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About the author

Gita Sahgal is a founder of the Centre for Secular Space, which opposes fundamentalism, amplifies secular voices and promotes universality in human rights. She was formerly Head of the Gender Unit at Amnesty International. Gita has served on the board of Southall Black Sisters and was a founder of Women Against Fundamentalism and Awaaz: South Asia Watch.

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